Startup Digest Education - Issue #61 - Ed Tech Research Hub, Blockchain, Data Sharing, & More

The U.K. Department for International Development announced the launch of an EdTech Hub, bringing together experts from around the world to work on ways to harness the potential of education technology to improve learning outcomes in low-income countries.

The obvious answer to the question in the title is no. Education is not prepared yet. This article is a call to action. This article explains three main ways to approach this topic:

a) Practical: using blockchain technology within our education systems.

b) Educational: educating students about blockchain

c) Organizational/Social: applying principles of the technology to our own formations of governance in education.

After urging ed-tech vendors and districts to sign pledges to support data “interoperability,” the advocacy group, Project Unicorn, is taking it up a notch and asking entire states to make a similar commitment. States signing the commitment agree to act as champions for interoperability in a variety of ways. One is that they’ll try to build support for best practices across different state agencies, not just those focused on education. In addition, states that sign are also asked to collaborate with districts and schools on their interoperability efforts, and establish a data governance structure that encourages interoperability.

A recent survey done in the UK on parents’ thoughts on kids and technology reveals some interesting insights. Here are a couple that caught our eye:

- Children are spending, on average, 3.5 hours on their smartphones a day, however parents think their children are spending an average of 1 hour 18 minutes.

- Almost half (47%) of the parents asked agreed that children spend too much time online.

- Parents across the UK expressed more concern for girls than boys, with over a quarter (26%) of parents agreeing that girls are more vulnerable online.

According to Techcrunch, global investors invested $8.15 billion in Edtech companies in the first ten months of 2017. You would think that with so much money invested, Edtech would have proven itself by now. Yet, many Edtech startups fail and schools and educators hesitate to take the plunge. The thing is, educators are not entirely convinced about Edtech. On top of that, they are not being adequately consulted on it. This disconnect is one of the many reasons why we haven’t yet seen Edtech reach its full potential.